I’ve known for a while that if you really want to get serious about making sure you’re able to get good, repeatable results from your tea that you need to watch all your parameters. But I hadn’t bothered to get a scale, until I met this tea.

I got the package, and thought, meh- I can just wing it. So I did. And the tea was awesome. And then my brain finally kicked it and thought – hey, if you can get awesome tea by winging it – what would happen if you actually did it 100% right?? I ordered a scale 5 minutes later.

The dry leaf is very silvery, the large needles are covered with that silvery down that gives this style of tea it’s name. In aroma, it’s got a lot of hay overtones – like summer fields. The liquor is a very light yellow once brewed, with only traces of summer fields. But – the flavor on this tea is where it really shines. It’s got a rich, silky feel in your mouth, and a flavor of newly mown hay and just a hint of honeysuckle for a delicate sweet note on the finish. This is light and clear – not a tea to be drunk with a heavy meal, but a tea to be savored on it’s own or maybe with light fruit. It has almost no astringency, but the very little it does have just invites you to sip more.

Delicate yet rich; smooth and clear. This is an amazing example of a silver needle.

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My favorites tend to be oolongs and flavored black teas. I like highly flavored teas more than delicate ones. Rooibos tends to taste like dirt to me, and hibiscus is very sour to my palate. But I’m always up to try all sorts of things, and will often find things that I really like which I thought I’d hate.